ETHICAL THEORY: A Framework for Teaching Computer Ethics Courses

Section 2.2.1 includes a select list of sources on philosophical ethics and ethical theory. Instructors interested in using a theoretical framework to discuss ethical issues in computing may wish to examine some of the works cited in this section. Section 2.2.2 lists sources that focus on applying ethical theory -- i.e., integrating theory with practice. Sources that examine the application of ethical theory to some of the broader or more general issues in computers and information technology are identified in Section 2.2.3. (Works that examine the application of theory to specific ethical issues in the use of computers, however, are cited in the appropriate sections of Part IV.)

2.2.1 Philosophical Ethics and Ethical Theories: Selected Works

Baier, Kurt. The Moral Point of View: A Rational Basis of Ethics. Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press, 1958.

Bayles, Michael D., ed. Contemporary Utilitarianism. NY: Anchor Books, 1968.

Beauchamp, Tom, ed. Philosophical Ethics: An Introduction to Moral Philosophy. NY: McGraw Hill, 1991.

Broad, C. D. Five Types of Ethical Theory. NY: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1930.

Cahn, Steven and Joram Haber, eds. Twentieth Century Ethical Theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995.

DeMarco, Joseph. Moral Theory: A Contemporary Overview. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 1996.

Edel, Abraham. Method in Ethical Theory. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1994.

Feldman, Fred. Introductory Ethics. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1978.

Foot, Philippa, ed. Ethical Theories. NY: Oxford University Press, 1971.

Frankena, William. Ethics. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1973.

Freid, Charles. Right and Wrong. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978.

Gauthier, David. Morality and Rational Self Interest. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1970.

Gert, Bernard. Morality: A New Justification of Moral Rules. NY: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Gorecki, Jan. Justifying Ethics: Human rights and Human Nature. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1996.

Haber, Joram Graf, ed. Absolutism and Consequentialist Critics. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1994.

Hare, R. M. The Language of Morals. NY: Oxford University Press, 1952.

Hare, R. M. Freedom and Reason. NY: Oxford University Press, 1963.

Harmon, Gilbert and Judith Jarvis Thomson. Moral Relativism and Moral Objectivity. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1995.

Hospers, John. Human Conduct: Problems of Ethics. NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972.

Johnson, Oliver A., ed. Ethics: Selections from Classical and Contemporary Writers. NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984.

Kant, Immanuel. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (tr. Lewis White Beck). Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1959.

Ladd, John, ed. Ethical Relativism. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1973.

MacIntyre, Alasdair. A Short History of Ethics. NY: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1966.

MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981.

Mackie, J. L. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. London: Penquin, 1976.

Meldin, A. I. Ethical Theories: A Book of Readings. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1967.

Mill, John Stuart. Utilitarianism. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs Merrill Company, Inc., 1957.

Nelson, William. Morality: What's in it for me? San Francisco, CA: Westview Press, 1991.

Olson, Robert G. Ethics: A Short Introduction. NY: Random House, 1968.

Oz, Effy. "What is Ethics?," Chap. 1 in Ethics for the Information Age. Burr Ridge, IL: Business and Educational Technologies, 1994.

Pojman, Louis P., ed. Ethical Theory: Classical and Contemporary Readings. 2nd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1994.

Pojman, Louis P. Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong. 2nd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1995.

Rachels, James. The Elements of Moral Philosophy. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1986.

Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971.

Ross, David. The Right and The Good. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930.

Sellars, Wilfred and John Hospers, eds. Readings in Ethical Theory. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1970.

Singer, Peter, ed. A Companion to Ethics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1991.

Sommers, Christina Hoff, ed. Vice and Virtue in Everyday Life: Introductory Readings in Ethics. NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985.

Taylor, Paul W., ed. Problems of Moral Philosophy: An Introduction to Ethics. 2nd ed. Belmont, CA: Dickenson Publishing Company, 1975.

Van Wyk, Robert. Introduction to Ethics. NY: St. Martin's Press, 1990.

Waldron, Jeremy. Theories of Rights. NY: Oxford University Press, 1984.

2.2.2 Integrating Theory With Practice: Applied Ethics

Almond, Brenda, ed. Introducing Applied Ethics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1995.

Andrews, Kenneth R., ed. Ethics in Practice: Managing the Moral Corporation. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1989.

Arthur. John, ed. Morality and Moral Controversies. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996.

Baier, Kurt and Nicholas Rescher, eds. Values and the Future. NY: The Free Press, 1969.

Bayles, Michael D. and Kenneth Henley, eds. 2nd ed. Right Conduct: Theories and Application. NY: Random House, 1989.

Beauchamp, Tom. Case Studies in Business, Society and Ethics. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs. NJ: Prentice Hall, 1989.

Beauchamp, Tom and N. Bowie, eds. Ethical Theory and Business. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1983.

Beckwith, Francis J., ed. Do the Right Thing: A Philosophical Dialogue on the Moral and Social Issues of Our Time. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 1996.

Bernier, Charles L. "Ethics of Knowing," Journal of the American Society for Information Sciences, May 1985, pp. 211-212.

Bok, Sisela. Secrets: The Ethics of Concealment and Revelation. NY: Vintage Books, 1984.

Bommer, Michael; Gratto, Clarence; Gravender, Jerry and Mark Tuttle. "A Behavioral Model of Ethical and Unethical Decision Making," Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 6, No. 4, 1987. Reprinted in R. Dejoie et al., eds. Ethical Issues in Information Systems, Boston, MA: Boyd and Fraser Publishing Co., 1991, pp. 6-21.

Bonevac, Daniel, ed. Today's Moral Issues: Classic and Contemporary Perspectives. 2nd ed. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing, 1996.

Bowie, Norman. Making Ethical Decisions. NY: Mcgraw Hill, 1985.

Brody, Baruch. Ethics and its Applications. NY: Harcourt and Jovanovich, 1983.

Chalmers, Leslie. "A Question of Ethics," Journal of Accounting & EDP, Vol. 5, No. 2, Summer 1989, pp. 50-53.

Clark, Ralph and Alice Darnell Lattal. Workplace Ethics: Winning the Integrity Revolution. Lanham, MD: Littlefield Adams, 1993.

DeMichiell, Robert. "Information System Development with Ethics: Integrating Theory with Practice," Interface Vol. 10, Winter 1988-89, pp. 74-81.

Edel, Abraham. Ethical Judgment: The Use of Science in Ethics. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1995.

Harris, C. E. Applying Moral Theories. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1986.

Hinman, Lawrence M., ed. Contemporary Moral Issues: Diversity and Consensus. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996.

May, Larry and Shari Collins Sharatt, eds. Applied Ethics: A Multicultural Approach. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1994.

McLarren, Ronald. Solving Moral Problems: A Strategy for Practical Inquiry. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1989.

Newton, Lisa, ed. Ethics in America. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1989.

Shrader-Freschette, Krisitn. Ethics of Scientific Research. Lanham, MD Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1994.

Singer, Peter. Practical Ethics. 2nd ed. NY: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Sterba, James. Morality In Practice. 2nd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1997.

2.2.3 Applying Ethical Theory to General Issues in Computer and Information Technology

Artz, John M. "Virtues vs. Utility: Alternative Foundations for Computer Ethics," in Ethics in the Computer Age: Proceedings of the 1994 ACM/SIGCAS Conference. NY: ACM Press, 1995, pp. 16-21.

Artz, John M. "Putting Virtues into Practice: Dialectic Values Clarification," a paper presented at the 4th National Computer Ethics Institute Conference, Washington, DC, April 27, 1995.

Barger, Robert. "A Metaethical Analysis of Computer Ethics," presented at the Second Annual Computer Ethics Conference of the Computer Ethics Institute. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institute, 1993.

Barger, Robert. "In Search of a Common Rationale for Computer Ethics," presented at the Third Annual Computer Ethics Conference of the Computer Ethics Institute, Washington, DC: The Brookings Institute, 1994.

Bear, George G. "Knowledge of Computer Ethics: Its Relationship to Computer Attitudes and Sociomoral Reasoning," Journal of Educational Computer Research, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1990, pp. 77-87.

Bologna, Jack. "A Framework for Ethical Analysis of Information Technologies," Computers and Security, Vol. 10, June 1991, pp. 303-307.

Burnett, Kay. "Ethics and IT: Is Human Factors an Ethical Approach to Designing and Implementing Information Technology?," in Ethics in the Computer Age: Proceedings of the 1994 ACM/SIGCAS Conference. NY: ACM Press, 1994.

Cohen, Eli and Larry Cornwell. "A Question of Ethics: Developing Information System Ethics," Journal of Business Ethics. 8:431-437, 1989. Reprinted in R. Dejoie et al., eds. Ethical Issues in Information Systems, Boston, MA: Boyd and Fraser Publishing Co., 1991, pp. 27-36.

Dejoie, Roy, George Fowler and David Paradice. "A Framework for the Study of Information Systems and Ethical Decision Making Processes," in R. Dejoie et al., eds. Ethical Issues in Information Systems, Boston, MA: Boyd and Fraser Publishing Co., pp. 85-96.

Ermann, M. David, Mary B. Williams and Claudio Gutierrez, eds. "Ethical Frameworks for Discussing Computer-Related Issues," Part I of Computers, Ethics, and Society. NY: Oxford University Press Inc., 1990.

Forester, Tom & Perry Morrison. "How Ethical Theory Can Help," in Computer Ethics: Cautionary Tales and Ethical Tales in Computing. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994, pp. 14-16.

Johnson, Deborah G. "Ethical Theory," Chap. 1 in Computer Ethics. 1st ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1985.

Johnson, Deborah G. "A Framework for Thinking About Computer Ethics," in J. Robinett and R.

Barquin, eds. Computers and Ethics: A Sourcebook for Discussions. NY: Polytechnic Press, 1989, pp. 26-31

Johnson, Deborah G. "Computers and Ethics," in L. Becker and C. Becker, eds. Encyclopedia of Ethics. NY: Garland Publishing, 1992, pp. 191-194.

Johnson, Deborah G. "Philosophical Ethics," Chap. 2 in Computer Ethics. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1994.

Laudon, Kenneth. "Ethical Concepts and Information Technology," in S. Conger and K. Loch, eds. Ethics and Computer Use, entire issue of Communications of the ACM, Vol. 38, No. 12, December 1995, pp. 33-39.

Mason, Richard O. "Applying Ethics to Information Technology Issues," in S. Conger and K. Loch, eds. Ethics and Computer Use, entire issue of Communications of the ACM, Vol. 38, No. 12, December 1995, pp. 55-58.

Oz, Effy. "Information Technology and Ethical Issues," Chap. 2 in Ethics for the Information Age. Burr Ridge, IL: Business and Educational Technologies, 1994.

Paradice, D. B. and R. M. Dejoie. "The Ethical Decision Making Process of Information System Workers," Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 10, 1991, pp. 57-77.

Spinello, Richard A. "Frameworks for Ethical Analysis," Chap. 2 in Ethical Aspects of Information Technology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice Hall, 1995.

Stinson, John E. "Industrial Age to Information Age: Changing Business Ethic," in Ethics in the Computer Age: Proceedings of the 1994 ACM/SIGCAS Conference. NY: ACM Press, 1995, pp. 139-142.